Thursday, December 15, 2011

Buffalo Trace Proves Small Barrels Don't Work.

Some time over the summer, I was asked by Buffalo Trace if I would like to come to the distillery in September, during the Bourbon Festival, to taste one of their failed experiments.

It's a measure of how strange this obsession is that I didn't hesitate. "Of course," I said.

Buffalo Trace has been experimenting for about 20 years. Everybody experiments, but Buffalo Trace has done things others don't, like release the results of some of the experiments as part of their Experimental Collection.

It's always been understood that some of the experiments are pronounced failures and the whiskey is discarded. Here was a case where they considered the experiment a failure, but thought I might like to taste its product anyway.

That's because the experiment involved aging bourbon in small barrels. Specifically, 5 gallon, 10 gallon and 15 gallon barrels. Yes, those are the sizes micro-distillers use.

I last wrote about small barrels in July, prompted by something John Hansell posted on his blog.

I write in depth about the Buffalo Trace experiment in the new issue of The Bourbon Country Reader, which dropped today. You really should subscribe and read the whole story, but I won't keep you in suspense. The whiskey was standard Buffalo Trace bourbon and it was aged in the small barrels for five years. It tasted bad. The whiskey from the 5 gallon barrel tasted worst.

Tasting them, you could get some ideas about why they tasted so bad. I talk about that too.

The December, 2011, issue of The Bourbon Country Reader is Volume 14, Number 2. In it, we also tell the story of The Great Whiskey Glut, observe the changing of the guard at Virginia Gentlemen, and taste two limited edition releases from A. Smith Bowman and Heaven Hill.

Subscriptions to The Bourbon Country Reader are $20/year for U.S. addresses, $24.50 for Canada, and $28.50 for everybody else. It is published six times a year. Well, maybe not, but your subscription always includes six issues.

33 comments:

Great stuff Chuck. I 100% agree on these small barrels. Any time spent with whiskeys aged in them leaves me with the same impression. It can't be rushed. Kudos to BT, which continues to demonstrate that OT is truly the best I'm the biz right now.

I do like what Koval does with a 30 gallon barrel. That is a good happy medium and my guess is BTs experiment with them would yield positive results.

Very interesting! And worrisome for the new craft distillers. I also remember reading the Laphroaig found that they could only finish their whisky in "quarter casks" for a few months at most. And I'm guessing those quarter casks are still much larger than 5 gallons!

you cant age in 5/10 gal barrels for 5 years. it's too long, of course it tasted bad, like a wood-chip I imagine. craft distillers age for a much shorter period of time. it works. hudson comes to mind as does leopold bros.

Of course it tastes like shit after 5 years in a barrel. I have found that after about 100 days in a 5 gallon (first fill) it starts going down hill. I will be the first to admit that older, larger barrels generally taste better than small, younger barrels (even if the "barrel influence" is the same), but I think you are painting with too broad of strokes when you say "small barrels don't work." That is like saying "aging whiskey doesn't work" just because some stooge found a barrel that had been accidently aged 50 years and it tasted like charcoal and wood chips.

Five years in a five gallon barrel is preposterous and doesn't prove anything. What proves is taste. Taste whiskeys blind and vertical and you'll see for yourself why Buffalo Trace went out of their way to "prove" this issue. Because they know that consumers aren't satisfied with age as the only measure of a whiskey, and they that's the only category they know they can lock, so they are working extra hard. But it's interesting that I don't hear this defensiveness from the other KY distillers.

I haven't read your article, but have read Lew Bryson's article about tasting the same spirits, and have to agree that saying this experiment "proves small barrels don't work" is an over reach. Does it prove that they age whiskey in a drastically different way? Sure. Does it prove that five years is way too long in a small barrel. Sure. But this is far from proving that you can't age bourbon in small barrels. I think Hudson and Garrison Brothers prove just the opposite; their bourbon doesn't taste like Buffalo Trace, but it tastes like bourbon. Hudson has won double gold at the San Fransisco International Spirits competition, their Rye just got a respectable 84 in Whiskey Advocate. How can it be said that small barrels don't work? How about "Buffalo Trace proves small barrels don't work if you age them in exactly the same manner as full sized barrels?"

What BT's test proves, I think, is that micro-distillers who say small barrels enable them to make a 5-year-old bourbon in 18-months, for example, the sort of claim many make, are saying something that is demonstrably not true.

You can't have it both ways, either it's a different product that can't be compared to mainstream whiskey, or it's a better made version of the mainstream style. It can't be both.

I agree with your last comment entirely, Chuck. Saying it speeds up aging is incorrect, and the whiskeys made in small barrels will no doubt be different than those aged in 53's. Though I would say you can still compare such whiskeys, and that small barrel bourbon is still bourbon. Hopefully consumers will be given enough information to know that what's in the bottle will be different than mainstream bourbon and can make their choice of purchase accordingly. It seems that most (though not all) micros are pretty open about how they are aging their products, and this is a good thing.

Woodinville, in Washington, is selling theirs for just that purpose. Or just pick your nearest micro-distillery and ask. Happily, since barrels are wood and not alcohol, there are no restrictions on selling them.

Great post Chuck! One craft distiller I know who eschews small barrels compared using them to putting ten tea bags into a cup of tea. You'll get something with color and flavor, but it won't taste like properly steeped tea.

Can't wait to read about the research Chuck. Will you make sure my subscription is still up to date? Great post.

You'll get to make your own assessment of the effects of our barrel aging program on our bourbon when you next come visit. But we stopped using 10 gallon barrels in 2009 and switched to larger sizes.

I love Kentucky bourbon but am becoming more fond of ours every day. I can say with confidence that our bourbon does not taste like traditional Kentucky bourbon. It has a rich, syrupy finish I can't find in Kentucky bourbons.

I got my new Bourbon County Reader yesterday and read the article. I was hoping that Buffalo Trace did more analytical analysis with gas chromatography or the like. Oh well, I guess taste is what's important. I can say that our bourbon from 10 gallons barrels that has been aged 6 months is certainly recognizable as good bourbon, albeit different than what we have in 53 gallon barrels. I too will be moving to 53 gallon barrels exclusively once we've depleted our existing stock of 10 gallon barrels. The cost per gallon of 10's is just not worth it, not to mention the quality differences.

There are several 'micro-distilled' products that I, and my whisk(e)y enthusiast friends, decidedly prefer to flagship offerings from Buffalo Trace, Four Roses, Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, Old Forester, and Wild Turkey. And I'm sure we're not alone. Yet I know of no micro-distillers anxious to submit this as 'proof' that 53 gallon barrels don't work either. Just because Buffalo Trace went and did something others haven't (or wouldn't), doesn't make what they did wise.

My apologies... I was just responding to the facts as you present them in your post. If I had known this post was just a teaser to try and get people to subscribe to your newsletter than I would have saved my limited bandwidth for something else.

Congratulations on your success. Most of the feedback I've received to this article from micro-distillers is them saying they are phasing out small barrels. Look, I've tasted good small barrel whiskey and acknowledge that there are ways to make a good product with a small barrel. What I do not accept is that it is, "whiskey aged 18 months that tastes like six years," because it doesn't.

Be that as it may Mr. Cowdery, if a whiskey tastes good most customers don't care if was aged in a oak thimbles or oak reservoirs. A conclusion I am sure is no great comfort to folks at Buffalo Trace. Now I don't grudge Buffalo Trace for countering by evangelizing the 53 gallon barrel's sanctity... it's part of keeping their lights on. Problem is that customers understand experiments and propaganda aren't mutually exclusive where brands and dollars are concerned, and they're more likely to conclude the former than the latter if the sermon isn't delivered from atop Mt. Conflict of Interest.

There are three aspects to barrel aging: ADDITION (through extraction), SUBTRACTION (through evaporation and adsorption), and MODIFICATION BY REACTION (through the establishment of equilibria among acetaldehyde, ethanol, and acetal; polymerization reactions; and oxidation-reduction reactions).

The only aspect that is proven to occur faster in small barrels is addition. Perhaps subtraction, but whether or not the undesirable congeners are subtracted faster is unknown to me.

So, if a traditional Kentucky Straight Bourbon is desired, I do believe Chuck and BT are correct in saying "Small Barrels Don't Work". A small barrel bourbon can achieve the addition aspect of a 53 gallon bourbon, but time is needed for those extractives and other whiskey constituents to undergo the modification needed to achieve a traditional bourbon character.

Small barrel bourbon is a unique product that can be very palatable, but I doubt small barrels will ever be used to create a traditional style bourbon. By the time modification takes place in a small barrel, the addition aspect will overpower the whiskey, which I'm guessing is shown through BT's results.

Yes, that's still the current issue. And for everyone's information, you can always request that your subscription begin with a particular issue or that it even include a particular back issue. We're very agreeable at Reader Tower.

I am not a bourbon pro as some of the commenters here. But I think the statement is exaggerated.What I understand is, that the time of the storage of barrels is only one variable; the size [and somehow more or less contact with the wood / charred wood] is just another.But then it also depends on the climate - where have the barrels been stored. It doesn't seem logical, that some experimental barrels are stored in the bottom of a pile of barrels - hence the climate changes are much more pronounced - this with the fact, that the increased contact and the long storage, will lead to a failed experiment.

You could also say, that whisk[e]y should not be aged longer than 10 years - while this can be true for some barrels, it would definitely not be true for others.

I think you could even create the taste of a "Classic Bourbon" in small barrels, if you have enough know-how, to play with the different variables. However of course a whiskey from small barrels will taste different, as the same spirit aged in a large barrel.

It seems very similar to homemade beverages; you won't have the result as beverages produced in a commercial scale - however this is most of the time the key.

I guess, the reason, why most micro distilleries changing to bigger barrels is on one hand, that they are growing, hence they produce more whiskey - and on the other hand, that it is just a higher cost, to produce in small barrels.